Despair
by RTfics
Summary: In an alternate universe where York doesn't survive the grenade in the training event with agent Texas, Carolina is stricken with grief.


I lay there on my back, remembering the horrible events that transpired on training room floor. The whole thing ran through my head every waking and sleeping hour of the day. It was worst when I was here, alone in my bed. The images of York's body lifelessly sprawled on the ground flying through my head like a slide show. I closed my eyes and the view of the training arena flooded into my sight. I watched in horror as Texas shot maine, as he fell to the floor he launched a grenade in her direction. She easily sidestepped it and looked to where it landed. It had landed a few feet from york who was trying to stand.  
"Hey!" She called out in what I assume was panic, York fell to her side and she shot york a few times, surrounding most of his body with the hard paintballs. The grenade exploded sending York flying. My vision went white and I could barely hear the yelling,

"Shit!" Called out south,

"Damnit those maniacs!" yelled Wash, we all began to rush from the room and I leaned towards the desk and pressed the intercom.  
"Filss, we need a medical team to the training floor, stat!" I turned as Alarms blared.

"Medical team en route." She said in her loud robotic voice. "Please remain calm."

"York. York!" I called, running towards his limp body, I turned to look at the medical agents, "Get over here, now!" They ran over and I could faintly hear Wash murmuring,

"Is he going to be okay?" I was barely able to hold back my tears,

"Come on york. Hang in there!" I pulled his helmet off and saw a shard of shrapnel sticking out of his forehead. His eyes rolled into his head. I gasped and fell back. South made a gagging sound and turned away and Wash dropped to his knees and ripped his helmet putting his head in his hands. North closed his eyes and turned away. I inched back towards York and put a hand on his chest then moved towards his head. A medic tried to pull me away.  
"Miss you need to back up please." I looked around and saw the other backing away, crying. I sat back on my legs staring at his dead eyes as the medics surrounded him and cut off my view from him…

I bolted my eyes open and swung my legs over the side of the bed, panting as a cold sweat dripped down my neck.

"God _damnit_!" I snarled to myself, that was the fourth time that had happened, I would lie down thinking about him, fall asleep and then dream about him... About what happened. It was tearing me apart. I got up and tied my hair into a messy bun and changed out of my tank top and sweatpants into the polyfiber suit I wore under my spartan armour and took off down the hall towards the armoury. Once there I quickly put on my armour, not bothering to take my helmet since I would be training on my own. I headed to the arena to train.

"Filss, set out holographic targets." I called out.

"Absolutely!" She replied enthusiastically as the green holographic targets spun to life around me. I raised my fists and lunged forwards punching one out and spinning around hitting another, with my right foot and spinning and punching the one next to the one I had kicked. Hit, kick punch, repeat, Hit, kick, punch, repeat. I hit out the last of them.

Three hours, I was sweating, out of breath, dehydrated, hungry and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun around and punched the person who had touched me in the gut.

"Oouf!" Wash fell on his back and I put a hand on my mouth.

"Sorry Wash!" I bent down to his side and helped him up. "You okay?" I asked as he brushed himself off. He coughed a bit, clearly winded.

"Y-Yeah because being punched by the best fighter on the mother of invention while not wearing spartan armour feels great." He muttered sarcastically while he rubbed his stomach.

"I said sorry." I muttered.

"Don't worry it's fine, listen I've been talking to North and he says you've been training for hours, you need to take a break." He said, glancing up to the observation room. I did the same and North waved at me. I sighed.

"I'm sorry Wash but I need to train." I said softly. He let out an exasperated sound,

"You've been training for hours!" He said in a frustrated voice, "What you need is rest, And I'm not leaving until you leave!" He exclaimed. I sighed,

"Fine, but I'm only taking a small break then I'm going back to training." I huffed and followed him out of the arena. He lead me to the cafeteria where CT,North, South, Florida and Maine sat. When I saw him my heart swelled with hatred. _Stop it!_ I thought viciously. It wasn't his fault what had happened, it was meant for Texas. Not him… Not York. I sighed and sat down on the end of one of the table's benches next to Florida. Florida slid his tray over to me.

"I'm full, you can have my food." He smiled at me and I smiled back softly, it was hard not to smile back at him. He was just too sweet. I began to eat some of the mashed potatoes on the plate. I looked up and saw Maine looking down at his plate, he hadn't said a word whilst the others were chatting. It brought me slight pleasure that he was still guilty, even after a few weeks. I opened my mouth to say something to him when Filss's voice chimed in over all of ours,

"Will Agents Washington, Maine, North and Florida please report to the planning room." I closed my mouth and sighed,

"Well we better start going." I stood up and walked in silence with the rest of my friends towards where the director was most likely waiting. I walked into the room and The Director and The Counselor were waiting for them. We filled into the room and stood at attention.

"Hello everyone." Said the Director. "This will be a routine raid. Go in, Rescue a vip and get out creating the least amount of noise as possible." We nodded, "Agent North will be leading this mission and he will fill you in while you are shipped to your location." We stood there looking at him,

"You are dismissed." Said the Councillor. We left the room and headed towards the pelican bay and went onto 47 9er's Pelican.

"Let's go!" He banged on the side of the aircraft and it hovered to life.

An hour later we arrived near our destination, hovering far above their base. The hatch opened. and we all stood by the edge of the pelican holding onto the walls.

"Alright people!" North shouted above the engine. "I'm going with Carolina and Florida to guard Wash and Maine's exit. Sync?"  
"Sync!" We all repeated as we put our helmets on.

"Let's go!" We all jumped down, I took out my dual Plasma pistols as we fell and looked over at north, he had his sniper rifle in his hand and he veered off from the rest of us and landed on a large pillar where he had a view of the whole compound. The rest of us landed near the entrance and Wash nodded at me and florida pranced over to a low wall and sat on it.

"I'm ready!" He said over the mic. I smiled and North's voice came in over the mic.

"Looks like there's a patrol headed your way, someone take care of them."

"Got 'em!" Florida hopped off his perch. "Where they at Northio?" Wash let out a short laugh.

"Northio?" Asked North,

"No?" Florida asked sounding disappointed.

"No." he replied,

"Alright, alright, Southeast, of you." He said. "I've got sights on one, they've stopped moving. Get close them and once you've got sights we'll both shoot. You dispose of the bodies so the next patrol doesn't find them." Florida nodded.

"Alright I'm on it." He headed down the path.

"Okay Maine let's do this." Wash said, Maine nodded,

"You head out I'll be right there." He responded in his gravelly voice. Wash nodded and walked into the the building. "I'm sorry Carolina, York wasn't supposed to be hurt." He muttered. I looked at him, directly where his eyes would be, "Don't say sorry to me, you should be saying it to York. But you can't. Because York is dead, and no apology will bring him back." I said coldly, turning my back on him. I heard him make a distressed sound but go through the facility doors. Florida jogged back.

"The threat is neutralized." He said cheerfully.

"Good, Soo North, what do we do? Just stay here and wait for patrols until we leave?" I asked North.

"That's what we're hoping for. Remember this _is_ a stealth mission." He replied to us,

"I know, I know." I sighed and and leant against the wall.

"Hey Carolina, want to play Rock, paper, scissors?" Florida asked, I could imagine a huge grin on his face and couldn't help but smile myself,

"Sure, why n-" I was cut off before I could fully respond as loud sirens began blaring.

"There's your excitement for you." North said over the com. I Looked up to the tower he was looking farther down. "You've got hostiles heading in your direction, 'bout two dozen regulars and two demomen. Think you two can take them? I can snipe a few but once they get to close I don't have sights on your area." The soldiers came into view and I saw the few in the front of the line begin to fall from North's fire.

"Wash! Maine! Where are you? We need to get out of here, NOW!" I called over the coms.

"Yeah we're having a bit of trouble ourselves." I heard gunshots in the background, "The VIP was shot, he's alive but in need of immediate medical treatment!" He called.

"Okay get over here! We're clearing a pathway for you!" I began shooting down the innies who had passed by North.

"Uh guys!" North called out to us, "We got another wave coming at you, at least fifty men! And a Pyro. I'm calling for the pelican!" I ran forwards shooting an innie in the face from a meter away and used his falling corpse to propel myself forwards, my foot stretched outwards directly into one of the Demo Men's face. He fell back onto his back knocking down the soldiers behind him. I turned my head to the side in time to spin out of the way of a bullet, heading towards my chest. I let out a relieved sigh but quickly returned to the fight, punching, shooting, Florida was fighting off the other demo and North had jumped down and was fighting the Pyro soldier and I was dealing with the cannon fodder that were the innies, I was about to reload my plasma pistols when I was suddenly kicked forwards onto the floor, my visor smashing into the floor making my head slam on to the inside of my helmet. I groaned, and rolled to the side onto my back just in time to miss being shot gunned in the back of the head. I could feel blood streaming from my nose. I jumped to my feet and slammed my fist into his chest, he stumbled back and dropped his gun and went for a roundhouse kick. I rolled under his leg and grabbed the back of it and threw him into a wall. He slumped to the floor and began to pull out a pistol. I Grabbed one of my Plasma pistols and shot him twice in the chest. He weakly lifted his arm and pulled his helmet off letting it drop to the floor. He looked young, blonde hair, and he was grinning. It was an unsettling grin. _He's dying, why is he smiling_ I thought to myself as a burning hot pain spread from between my shoulder blades. The knife left my back which hurt just as much as it entering and I screamed out in pain and I dropped to my knees.

"CAROLINA!" I hear Wash call out. I fell on my stomach and I felt like I was being flipped over. Next thing I knew I was looking into the face of the man I had just killed, he was kneeling over me, except it wasn't him. This man was different.  
"That was for my brother." He snarled spit flying onto my helmet "This, is for my troops." He raised the knife and began plunging it into my stomach where my left lung would be, "I want you to die slowly and Painful-" He stopped abruptly as a bullet passed out through the side of his helmet. But it was too late, the damage was done. My lung was punctured. I could already feel the blood filling my lung. I coughed blood all over my visor and suddenly Florida was leaning over me, pulling my helmet off and brushing the hair out of my face, wiping the blood away from my mouth.

"No! NO! Carolina!" He turned around and started saying something but I couldn't hear, my sense of sound was replaced with a buzzing. my vision padded with a black shadow. The strange thing was, I wasn't scared. Wasn't even mad. I was going to join York. I would be with York finally after weeks of torment and pain. I felt myself being lifted into strong arms and saw Maine's face and suddenly the buzzing was replaced by an even louder sound, an engine, even as Maine brought me towards the pelican my vision was fading. Nothing hurt anymore, and then everything was black.

What felt like moments later I came too, I felt like I was drowning, familiar faces all around me, familiar surroundings, I was on the pelican floor. I saw Wash yelling towards the cockpit, screaming to hurry up. I lifted my arm reaching out for him, Florida was crying, Maine was smashing his fist into the wall north looked as if he was trying not to throw up. I put my hand on Wash's mouth to silence him.

"S-stop" I murmured coughing out more blood, once again my vision was fading. "I'm going where I want to be going. I'm going to him. I'm going to York." I lay there for what was probably thirty seconds or so but felt more like hours. Finally my vision dimmed, and I did not wake up again.


End file.
